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Review: 'NEW MADRIDS, THE'
'Through The Heart Of Town'   

-  Label: 'Self-released'
-  Genre: 'Alt/Country' -  Release Date: 'April 2014'-  Catalogue No: 'NMR001'

Our Rating:
The New Madrids are a band steeped in Americana, and this, their début album is a real blast.

The band was formed in 2010 from the ashes of the band $outhpaw, alongside the lead singer of The Revivals. The full band line-up comprises Ian Hutchison on guitar/vocals, Donny McElligott on guitars, mandolin, vocals and percussion, Owen Nicholson on guitars, pedal steel, lap steel, keys and vocals, Callum Keith on bass, and Maurice McPherson on drums.

Whilst four long years have spanned the band's formation to the release of their first album, it has certainly been a wait that is worthwhile. Certainly, the packaging on the copy sent to myself was impressive; a plastic wallet featuring the CD, a business card, and a band bio, which states that certain influences include: - The Band, Whiskeytown, Drive by Truckers, Black Crowes and The Byrds. However, whilst their music may contain, at times, elements of all of these, The New Madrids have a very distinctive sound.

There are ten tracks on the album, all of which broadly fall within the Americana genre. The opening track, 'Wrapped Up' is an up tempo country style number, featuring some excellent steel guitar, and is the sort of song that would sit very easily alongside most things by Gram Parsons, The Flying Burrito Brothers, or The Eagles. The lyrics very much reflect the theme of love and loss, and is the sort of song that draws you in effortlessly: - “Goin' out on the town, on the town tonight. Goin' out with the same old crowd tonight/ I'm broken up without my lover. I'm growing up without another...What are you gonna do, what's it gonna be?/ What are you gonna choose, is it him or me?
I'm broken up without my friend, I'm growing up right to the end.”

Other tracks, such as 'Hey Christine' have a slightly darker, more sombre tone. This is slower and much more atmospheric, and the atmosphere suits the lyrics' theme of someone who has reached rock bottom: - “Woke up in the morning, my head pounding and tightness set in around my chest/ Raised a glass to the fallen, took a drink from the bottle that was lying by my bed.” But in this track, the singer finds some redemption: - “Cos I was blind, couldn't see, that the fall lay within me.”

Whilst there are several upbeat tracks on the album, it is the deeper, darker tracks that hit the hardest, and grip the heart with icy fingers, such as the stark, bleak 'Alaska', where a guitar and violin together have never sounded so lonely and desperate, the lyrics reflecting this with incisive accuracy, cutting the heartstrings like a hot scalpel: - “I ain't had much to drink, not as much as you think/ I just been out for a little while with my friends/ And now you're leaving me, cos you don't believe in me/ You're saying all I do is think about myself.”

Overall, this is a stunning début, well worth getting hold of. Sit back, knock back the bourbon and listen to this with a tear in your eye.


The New Madrids online store
  author: Nick Browne

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NEW MADRIDS, THE - Through The Heart Of Town